A Trade School for Faithful Living: How We're Learning to Teach the Skills of Life With Jesus

What if church was less like a lecture hall-and more like a workshop?
For centuries, Christians learned to follow Jesus not just by listening but by practicing. They apprenticed themselves to a community that taught them how to pray, forgive, serve, and live faithfully in the world. Today, many churches have lost touch with this hands-on way of formation. Faith is treated as information, leaving disciples unprepared for the challenges of daily life.
A Trade School for Christian Living invites churches to reclaim their role as schools of practice-places where people learn the craft of following Jesus together. Drawing on the OptIN project and the stories of Stick Town, this book casts a compelling vision for how local churches can:

• Equip people with skills for faithful living in a complex world
• Reframe discipleship as apprenticeship to Christ, not just beliefs about Him
• Create communities where practice, repetition, and support shape lives
• Reclaim the church's responsibility as a builder of lives shaped by Christ

With clarity and imagination, this book offers pastors, leaders, and congregations a way forward: a practical, hopeful model for forming disciples in everyday life.

The church is not just a place to hear about the Christian life.
It is where we learn how to live it.